Sometime Around Midnight
by Ryu-and-Lali
Summary: When your past turns up in the least likely of places.


**Authors Note: It's been awhile, and I apologize. I've just been in a writers block, but I'm trying to churn some things out.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Wing. I do not own anything by Airborne Toxic Event.**

 **Enjoy.**

 **Sometime Around Midnight**

 **By: Ryu and Lali**

It was as if time stood still as their eyes locked across the room. Her long blonde hair was swept up in an elaborate bun, accented with pearls. She broke her gaze away from his, adjusting her white dress, pulling the skirt down just a bit. She was beautiful, standing there, joking with her friends, holding tightly to her tonic. He hadn't seen her in years, not since he attended her wedding several years ago. What had happened that she was out alone, without her Gundam Pilot husband?

"Milliardo?" came a voice, breaking through his thoughts and bringing him to the present. "Milliardo Peacecraft, is that you?" The man looked into the ice blue eyes of the woman that had come up to meet him.

"Dorothy Catalonia." He breathed. "I mean Winner."

"No. Catalonia would be right." She laughed. "We divorced about a year ago." She shook her head. "How have you been?"

"I've been alright." The man managed to grit out. He was still surprised to see her in his bar. He had never pinned her as a girl who would go to the bar, but then again, people did change over the course of their lives. Much like who his sister had married. Was his purgatory finally coming to an end? "How about yourself?"

"I've never been better." She answered, turning her head back towards her table of friends. "It was great seeing you, perhaps we can get together soon? Catch up?"

"I'd like that." The blond nodded. He watched as she returned to her group of friends, and he was struck how she seemed to be very close with one of the males that were at the table with her. He felt something stir in him, and he likened it to jealousy. Jealousy was not an emotion he had felt in a very long time.

Zechs took another drink of his beer, tearing his gaze away from the woman that seemed to have rocked his world view at that moment. He hadn't come to the bar to just drink, he had come to lose himself in one way or another. Apparently that was not in the cards for tonight. The cards laid out told him that he was destined for something better, and that he was going to have to act on that hand soon.

He looked up just in time to see her waving at him as she wrapped her arm around another mans, leaving the establishment. He was blowing his chance, he didn't know what that chance was but he knew that if he didn't act on it, he was going to lose her. However he was still in a state of shock that she had even been there in the first place.

"Hey, you alright, man?" One of his buddies asked him. Zechs looked at him, a little confused. "You look like you've seen a ghost or something."

"I'm fine." He answered, standing up from the table and throwing some money down to cover his drinks. It was now or never. He was going to have to go after her, and pray that she would give him a chance. There was just something about her that was pulling him towards her, and that that pull was stronger than anything he'd ever experienced before. "I have to go."

The two of them clearly had a deep connection, one that ran into childhood. The connection between them was more than anything he ever had with Noin, and that was saying something. Noin had only seen him at his best, and she had always held him up on that pedestal, that he was unable to do no wrong. She hadn't even realized how low he had really sunk during the war. Dorothy, however, was there. It was Dorothy that had snapped him back to reality, he doubted any of them would be there if she hadn't stopped him from his attempt to blow up the Earth.

He pushed through the double doors of the bar and saw her about to get into a car. He ran after her, hoping to catch her before they sped off. He needed to get this off of his chest and he hoped that she'd be receptive. He knew that he was stumbling a bit, as he had had a few drinks at this point, but he didn't care that people were watching him.

"Dorothy!" Zechs called after her. It was about the fourth time he'd called her name. It would seem that that was the charm, though. The blonde spun around, taking her foot out of the car and watched as the tall man rushed up to her.

"Yes?" She asked, staring at him with some concern. She searched his face for some type of answer, wondering why he was running after her in the first place. It just seemed so odd.

"I…" he started as he reached her, but he couldn't find the words he desperately needed. He took a few steps closer to her, nearly closing the gap between the two of them.

"Milliardo?" She looked up at him, into his blue eyes. She had a look of concern on her face, an uncertainty that was meshing into one of a bit of curiosity. "Is there something that you needed?" It was plain and simple on his face that he was having trouble finding his words and she didn't know to help him.

"Dorothy, I…" He started once more. He took a deep breath and shook his head. "For whatever reason, time stood still when I saw you in that bar. That has to mean something." He stated as he reached up to caress her cheek with a finger.

"I'm with someone else, tonight, Milliardo. I can't just leave him." She looked at the man who stood by the driver's side door. The man looked annoyed and was about ready to just leave her standing there. Clearly he was not there for her, but for another reason.

"I don't think he's the kind of man you want to be around, Dorothy." Milliardo took her hands in his and smiled down at her. "I swear that I would never just use you, Dorothy, and I think you know this as well." He cupped her chin and brought his face within an inch of hers, his breath tickling her lips. Her perfume was making his head swim, but he didn't care. "Please, just give me a chance."

"I…" She was now the one at a loss of words. She searched his eyes for any underlying meaning and did not find a single one. "Yes."

"Perfect." Zechs whispered, closing the gap between them and capturing the lips of the woman that had just turned his world upside down.


End file.
